On March 7th, Dr. Jonathon Walton, a former UCR Professor and current Harvard Religion Professor, delivered a lecture entitled “This is my body broken for you…”which connected the Christian ritual of the Eucharist with current issues of social justice. As Harvard’s Pusey Minister, pastor of Harvard’s Memorial Church, Dr. Walton discussed how his Protestant theology of Communion, one in which the bread symbolically represents the sacrifice of Jesus after the words of consecration, is also a type and symbol of the broken bodies who suffer from police brutality. This was vividly enacted when a large amount of Harvard students participated in a ‘die-in’ right at the steps of the Memorial Church just as the Sunday services were ending and the congregants were stepping out. In order to leave the worshipers had to step gingerly through a large area of ‘bodies’ strewn about in a graphic representation of victims of police violence. Dr. Walton brought home the point that his congregants had just celebrated the ritual representation of a body broken by the oppression of the powers of his day only to step out to see another, perhaps more fleshly, ritual representation of just the same thing, only with names such as Freddie Gray and Eric Garner.

Dr. Walton’s use of a Protestant Communion service seems to be echoing the ideas of Durkheim regarding his ‘totemic principle’ and society as worshiping itself. The representation of the broken bodies of both Christ and victims of brutality in the communion ritual are ‘totems’ so to speak in which a community gathers around to have its consciousness raised and united to those very things. The Eucharist service is also a ritual of worship and so by uniting the deeply held values of social justice, as evidenced by the die-in, with a powerful religious symbol, the congregation, along with Dr. Walton, are in effect affirming those very same values as not only worthy but sacred. It is also interesting to note the interaction between these events and the theories of Karl Marx. They seem to contradict Marx’s description of religion as a tool of the bourgeois used to keep the oppressed pacified and restrained in the face of grave injustice. Here, powerful religious rituals are enacted in order to remove blindness to social injustice as well as prick the consciences of the worshipers in the face of oppression.

On February 2, 2017 President Donald Trump attended the National Prayer Breakfast, where he gave a speech discussing religious freedom. Trump made the claim in his speech that, “freedom is not a gift from government, but that freedom is a gift from God”. President Trump continued by claiming that he would repeal and destroy the Johnson Amendment. According to an article titled, Donald Trump Declares a Vision of Religious Nationalism, published online by theatlantic.com, claims that the Johnson Amendment is, “a provision of the tax code that prohibits religious leaders and institutions endorsing or opposing political candidates” (Online). If Trump is able to repeal this Amendment, it would mean that Churches would be able to endorse politicians or denounce them.

The problem in this situation is that if Churches are able to become part of the political process, they will likely endorse political candidates who will be in favor of the church. Church leaders will essentially be able to speak about issues that are political without fear of losing their tax exempt status. Usnews.com posted an opinion piece titled Is repealing the Johnson Amendment a good Idea?, in which supporters claimed that, “the law creates an important distinction between political and religious or charitable groups. They stress that organizations have the option to relinquish their tax-exempt status in order to participate in campaigning”. Many would argue that the repeal of the Johnson Amendment would be a violation of the separation of Church and State because Churches should not be involved in the political process. In their view if the church wants to participate in the political process, their tax exempt status should be revoked.

On March 9, 2017 there was a colloquium event discussing Gospel Tract. The presentation was done by a Doctoral student named Sean Sagan and it was titled “Only a Tract”. In this presentation Sagan discussed specific ways in which gospel tracts are distributed and discussed how effective they are in converting people to Christianity. For those who are unfamiliar with what tracts are, they are small papers filled with religious rhetoric that missionaries hand out to people on the streets. Perhaps you may have seen a tract on the floor of a public bathroom or some person handing out these cards to spread the word of the gospel. The speaker discussed how the effectiveness of these tracts is debated among evangelical circles and that the main reasoning for handing out these tracts develop a spiritual network. Tracts may be thrown on the floor but the idea is that someone else may walk along the road and pick up the tract and become saved from sin. Sagan also discussed “Open Air” preaching which is when a preacher gathers a crowd in a public space which sometimes creates tension between individuals who are not religious.

On February 1st, Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors co-founders of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, gave a lecture at the HUB that talked about their story for creating the infamous hashtag that has now been used in many protests. Garza and Cullors, along with their colleague Opal Tometi who could not make it to the lecture, identify themselves as queer women who are trying to make a change for their community. The hashtag began after Trayvon Martin’s murder in 2012 by David Zimmerman. The hashtag not only identifies with the murder of Trayvon Martin, but it also stands for the discrimination and injustice that the black community faces every day. Although there was no time to ask questions due to the shortage of time, I did look up ways that religion plays into the role of Garza and Cullors hashtag through other articles. However, most of the articles stated that religious groups would hardly involve themselves in the movement because they felt like this was no place for a church to participate in. But they did state that the fact that the Black Lives Matter hashtag pertains to ALL people is an important quality for Christian Ideologies.

Even though there is no mention of religious groups being involved in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, Ashton T. Crawley would look at this as an example of his Black Religion. Crawley states that queered blacks are slowly being erased from memory and knowledge; due to the fact that it is seen as “demonic” and “sinful.” Perhaps the reason why there are no religious groups involved in the movement is because it was created by queer women, something that creates uneasiness in the Christian and Black Church. However, Crawley would say that by creating this movement, these women are changing the stereotype of being a queered black. He would also say that these women are using the body as a way of making a statement. A statement by creating a hashtag that demonstrates that the lives of their community matter.

Jonathan L. Walton is a professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University and also the minister at Harvard’s Memorial Church. He gave this presentation essentially on broken, brown bodies. He discussed how he held a “die-in” for the lives of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and other black bodies lost and broken by police brutality. He held this event on the steps of his church during a Sunday morning service of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the Christian ritual of “eating” the body of christ and “drinking” the blood of christ. It is a ceremony to honor, respect, and appreciate the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for the followers of Christian faith.

He talked about how when people exited the church to see this demonstration of a peaceful protest, some church goers were supportive and understanding of the situation, while others were upset that their Sunday “Celebration” was being polluted with “political antics.” He told us that this woman’s complaint made him think, why is there a difference? Why is one more important than the other? Why can’t this be religious and why isn’t religion political? Christians celebrate the crucifixion for jesus, but this die in for broken brown bodies is wrong/political/doesn’t belong in the church. They are fundamentally the same, images/ritual in remembrance of lives lost/sacrificed. He explains that the black body arrived in america as a commodity, and item to be sold. This makes a black body less than a white body, there is no concern for a broken black body in the church, but there is concern for the white body of christ. He claims that to deny their validity of life, is the opposite of the Eucharist. He advocates for a rethinking of religious ritual, the Eucharist and our definitions of death and suffering. On thing that really stuck with me was his suggestion to replace the blood and body of christ, with an arizona and a bag of skittles in remembrance of the death and suffering of Trayvon Martin. One of the last points he makes hit me very hard. He explained that segregation/discrimination is not a black/brown problem, it’s a white problem. It is the WHITE responsibility to change, effect and be conscious of equality.. Being a minority, brown body myself I never really thought of things in this perspective, and for that I’d like to thank Professor Jonathan L. Walter for coming to our campus and presenting this lecture.

I think what Professor Walton was saying relates to Durkheim’s idea of the totem being representative of society worshiping itself. In a religious society, they pray and worship a totem, this totem represents them, thus they are worshiping and praising themselves. To me there are many things that can be a totem besides a cross or religious symbol, in the case of the Eucharist, these totems are the blood and body of christ. Professor Walton’s suggestion of the rethinking of these totems becoming the skittles and Arizona tea would be the indication of the image of society changing. The people who want to keep these “political” issues out of the church seem to simultaneously support the white traditional society that these Christian totems represent. By changing the totem, we change what we see as representing of our society. It is a lack of acknowledgement and respect for this broken brown bodies.

Dr. Jonathan Walton, Minister of Harvard Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Religion and Society at Harvard University presented the UCR Colloquium entitled “This is my body broken for you…” on Marth 7th, 2017. This lecture explored minority inequality in terms of the economic, social, and racial, all within the scope of Christian ideologies. Dr. Walton begins by citing examples of police brutality against African-Americans such as Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice, and mentions the mass protests accompanying these unjustified deaths. Dr. Walton spoke of the protests that transpired at colleges and universities around the country with the outcry of Eric Garner’s words as he was being mishandled by the NYPD: “I can’t breathe”. Dr. Walton calls protests “performance art, cultural ritual and theatrical representation of injustice and of resistance”. Dr. Walton also mentions a specific protest at his own Harvard University on Sunday December 6th, 2015 on the steps of the Harvard Memorial Church of about 500 people who laid themselves down in front of the church steps, forcing other parishioners to walk over their bodies to exit. Dr. Walton received both positive and negative feedback by his congregation as well as a specific complaint disdaining the ‘political’ turn that transpired, guiding church in a specific direction that wasn’t warranted by the parishioner.

Dr. Walton continues by giving numerous analogous analyses of the injustices of African Americans: Caesarean Roman Empire, mentioning the resistance of Galilee by the Jewish peasant class – “Bandits”, and Romano-Jewish scholar Josephus said, “Roman trees bore strange fruit”. Walton goes on to quote Jewish theologian Martin Buber with ‘Black bodies are “its”’, and are ‘objects of consumption’; Walton also mentions his Harvard colleague Walter Johnson and his ecological analogy of African-American slaves being referred to as crops and how they would often be punished and brutalized in slaughterhouses as less than human, or animals, their deaths were “neither tragic, nor an injustice.” Walton finally provides the analysis of philosopher Judith Butler, ‘de-realization of certain human subjects’, of which Walton cites minorities like, ‘Jewish, queer, trans, black, brown, Arab bodies’, etc. and concludes his analysis by calling back to the email complaint of the parishioner mentioned earlier, and how she was forced to become a part of the political protest outside of the church with such disdain. Dr. Walton states that this is the ‘opposite of the Eucharist’, and how “a new conception of Christ in the ritual” is needed.

The USA Today newspaper article published on February 22nd, 2017 is referencing the late January executive order issued by the Trump administration, which has now been rescinded due to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals deeming the order unconstitutional. The role of religion (Christianity – non-denominational or otherwise) in this newspaper article reports on certain faith communities giving sanctuary to those that are fearful of being deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers (ICE) for being undocumented. Religion is being used in a socio-political fashion as a form of resistance to the executive order issued by Trump. As discussed in class, Émile Durkheim, theorist and author of The Rules of Sociological Method defines a “social fact” as “-every way of acting which is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing in its own right independent of its individual manifestations.” The ‘faith communities’ have been involved in various forms of sanctuary for centuries, and its leaders in this circumstance are reportedly acting in regard to either their moral conscience, or their interpretation of their faith. The ‘social fact’ of congregations offering sanctuary is not a new notion, but its existence is socio-political resistance from a religious standpoint.

In Professor Walton’s lecture “This is my body broken for you…”, Walton spoke on relating Christianity to the present struggles of Black and Brown bodies. The incident at hand was a die-in staged in front of Harvard Memorial Church while mass was taken indoors. Some of the parishioners were angry that the die-in was being performed during their sacred ceremony. Professor Walton argues that protest is a form of public ritual, for it is a theatrical representation of injustice and resistance. Professor Walton brings up Jesus’s last supper, where he gave his body and blood in remembrance of him. Professor Walton describes Jesus and the jews as religious subversives for they were going against the Pax Romana. The bread and wine meant to stand as Jesus broken body. Professor Walton offers the idea to change the bread and wine to an Arizona iced tea and Skittles, the two objects Trayvon Martin was carrying before being shot by George Zimmerman. The adoption of new symbols for the consumption of broken bodies.

I would like to relate this to the Asad’s writing of religious symbols and how they fits into religion and society. Asad writes that ritual is meant how it is played out. Here protest is seen as a ritual for it engages with the damage of black and brown bodies. The eurocentric idea of what is a ritual is critiqued here by Talal Asad. The premise of the argument is the protest being held at the same time as the mass. Asad argues that religious symbols are more apart of life and not just for religious ceremonies as in European traditions. Professor Walton argues that a protest is tied to Christianity. Trayvon Martin and others are martyrs of Black Lives Matter, and so religion should take a greater part in remembering such a fallen figure. Hence, the renewing of the religious symbols. In a way it is still eurocentric, for this is a black and brown body issue. It is easily discarded by the white masses when it should be consider as part of the religious celebration.

I attended PhD candidate Sean Sagan’s colloquium event today, titled “Only a Tract”. His seminar covered gospel tracts, and various subjects surrounding them, such as their ways of manifestation and the “Great Commission”. A gospel tract is, in essence, religious advertising. It is a visual substance – usually a handout, sticker, pamphlet, or fake currency – that has the intention of “planting the seed” of the evangelical gospel within the observer. They can be found virtually anywhere, even on a urinal in a public bathroom – because salvation can happen at any time, anywhere.

Tract evangelism and Emile Durkheim’s idea that religion and community are interwoven together somewhat go hand in hand. Sagan shared with the audience that “Tract evangelism is more for the missionary, than the recipient”. This is due to the fact that the disbursement of gospel tracts aids in the building cultural identity borders. In the book of Matthew in the New Testament, there is talk of the “Great Commission”, in which Jesus told his disciples to go forth and spread the word of God everywhere. By combining the “Great Commission” and Durkheim’s thoughts on religion and social cohesion, we are left with these evangelical gospel tracts. The unfettered spread of the gospel through tracts not only defines the community passing them out, but openly invites outsiders in – like a public Jesus party.

On February 13, 2017, I attended a religious studies colloquium on the UC Riverside campus entitled, Conversation on the Immigration Ban. The event was put on by a collection of campus organizations, including the Middle Eastern Student Center, the English Department, and the School of Public Policy. An extensive list of esteemed speakers were in attendance: UCR Chancellor Kim Wilcox, Karthick Ramakrishnan, Sherine Hefez, and Reza Aslan to name just a few. The discussion was split up into three sessions with the topics, “Scrutinizing the Immigration Agenda,” “American Stories and Experiences,” and “Campus Resources.” This colloquium was organized in response to the new executive order set in place on January 27, 2017 by Donald Trump which prohibited immigration into the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries. In the face of this blatant discrimination and Islamophobia at the Federal level, all Chancellors of the UC campuses issued a statement lamenting that this executive order would not demolish the integrity of the UC system and its premises of diversity and inclusion.

Some incredibly interesting points were brought up by a couple of the speakers that can be tied back to the ideas of Robert Sharf. For example, Sharine Hefez broke down the political implication of the ban. She pointed out that the immigration order was not necessarily meant to ban Muslims per se, but to create a discussion about Muslims in the U.S. in general. However, this is more of a mustering up of hate and skepticism against Islam than an objective discussion. Furthermore, by strategically inserting Islamophobia into the political and social system, it allows for people to reinterpret it, desensitizes the public, and therefore normalizes Islamophobia. This type of structural discrimination leads to institutionalized Islamophobia in quite a systematic way. Reza Aslan goes deeper by positing that Islam in America is largely considered an ideology, not a religion by government officials. In this sense, if Islam is an ideology, and not a religion, then it has no constitutional religious rights. In Sharf’s opinion, people in power should pay attention to the fact that every religion and every person who practices it has an internal, subjective experience of it. If our government officials, especially Donald Trump, can overcome this theory of mind barrier, Islamophobia probably would have never taken hold and the Muslim ban might have never been put in place.

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